MUMBAI: Big Bollywood studios started betting on regional films towards the end of the last decade, wooed by the huge fan base of superstars such as Rajinikanth, faster turnaround on capital and a chance to own intellectual property rights that translated into possible remake rights. And they never looked back.

Today, between Reliance Entertainment, Eros, Disney UTV, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, Fox Star Studios and independent producers like Emmay Entertainment (Nikhil Advani) and Akshay Kumar and Ashvini Yardi's Grazing Goat Productions there are about Rs 550-600 crore of investments riding on some 20-30 films in Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri and four South Indian languages. And almost all of them plan to spend 20% of their annual budgets on regional cinema.

"The centre of gravity is slowly, but surely shifting towards the regional Turks. And one cannot afford to neglect this new reality if one needs to grow in the coming decade," says Yardi of Grazing Goats who has just completed two Marathi films and a Punjabi film.

She says regional cinema will be the growth engine of Indian film industry in the decade to come, and points out that according to Central Board of Film Certification, out of 1,255 films released in the country in 2011, 1,035 were in regional languages, with an expected investment ofRs 1,500-2,000 crore.

Also, some regional films have overtaken the collections of Hindi films in markets such as Australia, Canada and US.

In terms of content too, regional film industries such as Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi and Bhojpuri are experimenting with newer themes and breaching new barriers, Yardi says. Grazing Goat plans to invest Rs 60-70 crore into regional cinema over the next two-three years. Kamal Jain, CFO at Eros, says, "Regional is easy to de-risk, plus the yield from regional cinema is as much as 40%."

The other advantages, he adds, include the films get completed on time, music gets presold, the domestic boxoffice is growing with some tax incentives, demand for satellite rights and international territories are growing, and the working cycle is faster.

"The limitation is we are under-screened," Jain says. Eros has invested close to Rs 150 crore across four to five regional languages. The satellite market has grown by 50% for, say, Marathi and Malayalam cinema.

Sanjay Chhabria's Marathi hit Tukaram, for example, has been sold to Star Pravah for Rs 2 crore "The growth in the satellite market is great news," says Deshmukh. Chhabria, who has made hits such as Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy and Tukaram, however, says only the top ten productions get these prices.

G Dhananjayan, who heads the Disney UTV's business in the South, says Malayalam cinema with eight channels competing has seen a 50% rise in satellite rights prices, while Tamil, Kannada and Telugu cinema are yet to grow in the satellite market.